A paper from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies
turned Zigmond onto intermittent fasting. It suggested that
when you eat might matter as much as what you
eat. Mice with feedings restricted to certain hours of the
day became thinner than mice who were fed whenever,
according to the study. Zigmond was reminded of his time
living in a Buddhist temple in Thailand, where the monks followed
a similar routine, and
decided to give it a go.

Zigmond — who counts Microsoft, Google, and YouTube among his
past employers — eats during a nine-hour window
each day.

Most days begin the same. He wakes around 6 a.m. and takes a
quick run around the neighborhood while listening to Kanye West.
After getting his kids ready for school and guzzling a large
cup of green tea, he arrives at Facebook's Menlo Park,
California, campus.

His first meal comes at 9 a.m. Zigmond grabs a
bowl of oatmeal topped with Greek yogurt from Facebook's
cafeteria, and he sometimes adds a handful of granola,
blueberries, or bananas.

"I try to take half an hour for breakfast, without doing
any work," Zigmond said.

Through a morning of meetings and writing at his desk, Zigmond
tries to stay hydrated by drinking an unsweetened iced tea. When
lunch rolls around at noon, he leaves his desk for a full
hour and finds a lunch-buddy with whom he can talk
about "non-work" stuff.

"I'm very flexible about what I eat at lunch — there's no rules
at all," Zigmond said. "Yesterday I had pizza. My favorite is
Indian food, but I have to bike over to the other campus for
that, so only do that maybe once a week."

In the afternoon, he conducts one-on-one meetings with members of
his team, preferably outside. Zigmond walks over 15,000 steps,
about seven miles, on a typical work day.